Numerous as the Stars
by Literary Portals
Summary: Read of Medusa's curse turned blessing, of Hermes and Apollo's friendship, of Ate's influence on Helen and Tecmessa, of Hera's starvation, of Idunn's disillusionment, of Inanna and Athena's spar, and more. Unconnected drabbles on different mythologies and different deities.
1. Starvation - Zeus & Hera

Do you know what it's like to be starved? A goddess should never, yet I, a goddess, have.

I have tasted the loss of my mother in the bowels of my father.

I have tasted the dearth that abounded when my brothers and sisters fought the Titans for rule of what was rightfully ours.

I have tasted Demeter's grief for her daughter, for humans will die without sustenance, and humans without sustenance thus neglect their gods.

The starvation I have suffered is unlike what I have suffered since the beginning of the creation of those wretched humans I call mine, and I suffer it at the hands of my husband.

I have been starved of his love, of his care, of his affection, and most importantly, of his _respect_. It is made worse by the fact that he is not devoid nor incapable of any of those things. No, but he bestows it on unworthy beings, human women and immortal women, brave and courageous men and their children, and always, always someone other than me.

The mortals laugh, you see, and praise Zeus for the bestowal of his honour and attention on their pitiful race, laugh at the great goddess who must lack something if her own husband abandons her and desecrates any honour she held again and again.

I punish them, I show them that they should be afraid to transgress on what was never theirs, but Zeus defies me over and over, dishonours precisely what I represent, and I begin to wonder if I should give in and give up on holding him to what he owes me.

But I am the goddess of marriage, the goddess of the women he leaves me for, and the goddess of the women who pray to me, and should I give up and give in, it will prove me weak, and it would be a disservice to those who come to me for ease in their marriage, or help in their marriage, or safety from their marriages.

I will not. I will fight, and I will hate and Zeus's transgressions will never be safe from me. I will survive on nothing. After all, starvation is the companion I wish Zeus would be to me; persistent and loyal and ever-present. Starvation is mine.


	2. Introduction - Aphrodite & Ares

When Aphrodite met Ares, it went very simply in her mind. She wanted him, therefore she would have him.

She emerged from the sea fully formed and more beautiful for her creation from the savagery of her grandfather and father and its union with the wild, tempestuous sea. She never thought she would meet anything like herself, (a thing, always, was what she was taught to be) nothing so passionate and unrestrained, and it was only when she was wedded to Hephaestus the cripple did she meet Ares.

He was gore and glory without façade, and while _she_ was seen as a child, ill-tempered and willful and to be appeased, something to be admired from afar, _he_ was seen as powerful and proud and rightly the god of war, rightly the father of chaos and destruction and torturous battle.

She almost hated him; but love was hate beyond dislike and disgust, love was hate to consume. She wanted so viciously to consume Ares and his status before the gods, his visceral brutality and joy in destruction, his abandon, the fear he engendered in mortals, his freedom to be what he _was_, that she almost understood the brutality of Ouranos against Gaia.

That Ares could pursue and crave her like he craved bloodshed, yet she was not to reciprocate what the foam still in her veins surged for because she was _wedded_, was what she hated.

As if vows meant anything to gods.

As if the goddess of love should or could be restrained.

Aphrodite met Ares and it was as violent and inevitable as the crash of waves upon a shore.


	3. Love - Leuce

Leuce loves the river Lethe the most, but Hades will not let her near it. Hades loves her, she sees it in his solemn, enduring gaze, and his solemn, enduring, _encrouching_ hands.

She used to be free to encircle all the life of creation, to caress the Mother of mothers with joyous devotion, before she was taken. She cannot swim, anymore, nor dance with her sisters, or laugh with her Mother of mothers, nor submerge herself in anything so wholly unrestrained as the realm of Ocean.

She could, if she let herself, submerge herself into the persistence of Hades, but she will not.

He will not let her go, he will not let her swim in Lethe, he will not let her _be_, so she will not let him have.

Leuce becomes another river in Hades' underworld, to accompany the rivers of pain, and hatred, and wailing, and is desperate only for oblivion. Fire is the only river she wishes for Hades.


	4. Light - Asteria

_Never forget who you are_, her mother had told her, when the children of her uncle began the war that would destroy the order that had been all Asteria had known.

Later, when Leto welcomed Zeus, who assured them that there was room yet in the universe for them, Asteria heard her mother's voice: _Never forget who you are._

Her sister did not listen. Leto wanted so desperately for her light to not fade away as her parents' and uncles' and aunts' light had, that she would lie with Zeus the deceiver, the usurper.

Asteria turned away, and watched her light fade, while her sister's grew and doubled, nay, tripled. Leto told Asteria that she would bear Zeus's children, his bright, bright twins, and they would be safe, finally, safe and ever bright.

_Never forget who you are, _whispered her mother, and Asteria would not forget that before them there was Gaia and Ouranous, and before them there was Nyx and Tartaros, and before them nothing, and from that nothing Asteria is what she is, and to that nothing she will return, as all will.

Mortals forget, so gods fade, but Asteria will not forget who she is. So when, inevitably, Zeus turns from Leto's heavy, growing light, turns to his consort's sister, and appraises, Asteria knows, and remembers who she is, and remembers who Zeus is.

Zeus may pretend, may forget, but he is the son of Kronos who aggrieved Rhea, and the grandson of Ouranus, who tore at Gaia.

So Asteria runs, and she does not forget, not when she's tired, not when she's alone, not when Leto wails her birthing pains and realizes how little a place in heaven she has, and not when Zeus chases and chases and chases.

Then she sees the ocean, and she sees freedom, and fading, and the end of pursuit, and she drowns, but she does not forget who she is.

_I am Asteria daughter of Pheobe and Coeus and sister to Leto, and I will not forget who I am._

Asteria does not fade, and Leto does not lose her sister or her lights.

* * *

_**A/N: **__Just to explain, light is the power of the god tied up with their existence._


	5. Dark - Medusa

She prayed to me, I think, as I watch as Perseus flees the Gorgon's grief-fueled pursuit atop their sister's winged son. I remember Medusa's prayers, constant and desperate. _Make them stop watching, make it dark so they cannot see me, I don't want to be beautiful, I want to be strong, make him stop, make him stop, make him stop. _Over and over and over.

Poseidon dared to desecrate my temple with his despicable act, and Medusa prayed and prayed. I gave her what she wished, though perhaps not in the way anyone had expected. They think, the men in their arrogance and jealousy and fear of women, that I punished Medusa, my beloved, desperate, beautiful disciple.

No. She wanted darkness to swallow her beauty, to free her from their petrifying stares and hands and weight. I gave her the gift of bestowing darkness on any who transgressed the right she was owed (autonomy, bodily sanctity, freedom).

Medusa understood. She needed only the love of her sisters, the quiet of the caverns she visited, and the ability to wield a different kind of strength.

Men were foolish, men pursued her even when the legend of great Athena's wrath had spread, and they reaped what they tried to sow. So she adorned her home with the vestiges of them, and they met the dark of their petrified bodies.

The fates though, have destined this course for Perseus, and Zeus is lord of Olympus, and I have duties, but even so…

When Perseus escapes, I descend to the wailing, spitting sisters and I tell them.

"I will honor her. My father raises his gloried warriors to the heavens, but I will keep her with me, always. She will be honored, she will be a symbol of my power and my wrath and my justice."

The Gorgons concede, as I knew they would, and I take Medusa, and I make her a part of me. No one will ever forget my Medusa, even if for the wrong reasons. That is the way of wisdom, it's a gift not given to everyone. For those who are wise, they know what Medusa means, to me, to women everywhere, to herself.

* * *

_**A/N:**_ _A mix of different accounts of Medusa's legend and something entirely different. It never made sense to me that the victim was punished, so I decided that she wasn't and people were idiots. _


End file.
